The present invention refers to a method for optimizing reuse of artifacts in industrial engineering and to computing entities and system supporting the optimization of reuse of artifacts in industrial engineering as enabled by the method.
In particular, the present invention refers to a systematic improvement of reuse of entities in industrial engineering, wherein the industrial engineering refers to at least one of following, the development of products and the development of solutions.
When considering, for example, developments of industrial products or solutions like industrial constructions, structural works, equipments, or structures, detection of reusable entities or components of these industrial products becomes a more and more important issue. Such industrial products or solutions like high velocity trains or power plants, for example, are constructed by a set of mechanical or physical entities or components, wherein a mechanical or physical entity can be composed by further mechanical or physical entities or components. The construction of an industrial product or solution is usually presented and provided by a set of documents comprising, for example, constructional drawings, schemes, structural plans, working designs, descriptions, analysis, experimental, or conditional sheets, or simply relevant notes. Further, also requirement descriptions or offers concerning the industrial product belong to documents specifying the industrial product. All of this data concerning the industrial product represent the product with regard to several abstraction levels of construction, structure, or character of the product. When developing new industrial products or searching for new solutions, knowledge of previous developments and/or previous solutions is very important. Usually, only experts of the respective development area possess this knowledge, wherein an expert typically has knowledge about only a small part of the previous development. Thus, the expert has some overview of some of documents characterizing some previous developments. Consequently, no complete overview of previous work is available when working at new industrial systems, products or solutions. Therefore, situations will occur often, in which some relevant information, development, or solution, which could be reused for a current work, will not be reused and time and efforts will be invested in an object, entity, or component being evolved previously.
A possibility of reuse of knowledge of previous engineering or development processes in a current engineering or development process where appropriate, in particular, recognition or reusable entities or components (referred to as artefacts in following) becomes more and more important, as both costs and complexity of engineering or development may be reduced and also the quality of new products or solutions can be improved considerably when reusing established entities or components of previous developments where appropriate.
In following, as already mentioned, information, knowledge or data about (mechanical or physical) entities or components of industrial products or solutions will be referred to as artefacts. These artefacts may be, for example, documents comprising constructional drawings, schemes, structural plans, working designs, descriptions, analysis, experimental, or conditional sheets, or simply relevant notes, requirement specification or offers/bid documents with regard to an industrial product or solution. Thus, artefacts represent data concerning the structure, construction, and/or characteristics of an industrial product or solution.
When implementing the desired reuse of entities or components, or artefacts, respectively, the following problems have to be overcome:                Several approaches to reuse exist. A systematic differentiation between these kinds of reuse is often difficult. Therefore, a structured and continuous tracking of one view, approach, or kind of reuse is hardly possible. However, despite the problem of the systematic differentiation of the different kinds of reuse, this differentiation imperative and necessary to ensure a maximal use of potential or the reuse of artifacts.        Further, in most cases the degree of structuring or level of the abstraction of the artefacts, which could be reused, is not available automatically but is known just to the experts. However, this information is important when implementing the desired reuse.        Additionally, a systematic differentiation between a top-down and bottom-up reuse approach is also a complex task.        
The top-down reuse approach is performed by anew use of top-down artifacts. A top-down artifact is a semi-finished or intermediate product or solution, the open parts (entities or artifacts, respectively) of which may be added targeted to the semi-finished or intermediate product or solution to determine and provide the whole system of a product or solution. Here, a kind of scheme or structure of a semi-finished or intermediate product or of a solution is provided, in which some of parts are known or determined and some of parts are unknown or not determined. The task is to find or determine the missed parts.
For doing this, a top-down approach is used. According to the top-down approach, a system, product, or solution is developed by taking at least one already existing or provided semi-finished or intermediate product or solution and by targeted adding of parts (entities or artifacts, respectively) to the at least one already existing or provided semis finished or intermediate product or solution. The added parts (entities or components, or artifacts, respectively) supplement the semi-finished or intermediate product or solution in their original or in an adapted form. This process can be performed until the development or construction of the desired system, product, or solution is completed.
The addition of parts (entities or components, or artifacts, respectively) to the already existing or provided semi-finished or intermediate product or solution can be performed in several ways. An example of an easy implementation is the adding by use of a pool or set of entities or components, wherein at least one entity or component from the pool or set of entities or components fitting best or being generally suitable is detected and added to the already existing or provided semi-finished or intermediate product or solution. It is supposable, that at least at the end of the process of the construction of the desired system, product, or solution the parts to be added will be adapted or constructed (anew) such that they fit into the desired system, product, or solution and that they are suitable to complement the semi-finished or intermediate product or solution.
The bottom-up reuse approach is performed by anew use of bottom-up artifacts. A bottom-up artifact is a component, which is determined by use of or chosen from a pool or set of artifacts and which is connected with other artifacts to develop a desired system, product, or solution step by step. The composition or connection of bottom-up artifacts is performed stepwise or iterative. In particular, by composition or connection of (bottom-up) artifacts or components larger entities or artifacts are developed and derived. These larger entities or artifacts are then bottom-up artifacts to be connected or composed with other entities, or components, or artifacts in a next step or level of development of the desired system, product, or solution. The bottom-up development can be seen as a kind of bricks or parts, which can be assembled and connected in many ways to build a solution.
From a model view, a bottom-up artifact typically represents a general component. A component is therefore defined as a part of a whole (system, product, or solution). Components can be used to construct an industrial system, product, or solution. An entity is a more comprehensive or abstract object, which can be composed by several components.
Because of problems, pointed out above, the known reuse of artifacts is not automatized. An automatization is provided neither entirely nor partially. Usually, knowledge of experts is used when thinking of reusing entities of previous developments or solutions in current developments or solutions.
Further, no proposals of how to appraise artefacts with regard to both qualitative and quantitative aspects are available.
Thus, there is a need for revising deficits of reuse in engineering organizations and for support when deciding on a possible reuse of an artifact.